Ownbox The Ownbox Foundation · Ownbox.io · Download PDF

The Ownbox Foundation

Two hundred hours of engineering, running on day one, owned by your company.

This page describes custom Ownbox implementation services, scoped and priced separately. It is not the standard self-service Ownbox Core or Ownbox Pro purchase.

Most AI engagements begin by signing a company up for a stack of tools, each billed monthly, each holding a piece of its data, none of them its own. Ownbox begins differently. Our forward-deployed engineer arrives with a built machine: one system, on a server your company owns, already running the groundwork every AI build needs. Your budget goes on the problem you brought us in to solve.

Already built
~200 hours of engineering, done before day one
Owned by
Your company its server, its data, its AI account
Running
Day one minutes after the order

Why we arrive with a machine

A consultant with nothing but advice leaves a company renting. We leave it owning an asset: the platform, the work built on it, and the data inside it.

An asset, not a stack of subscriptions. The groundwork is paid for once, already tested, and already running before the first hour of your project.

What our engineer does with it

  • Stands it up on your company's own server and AI account
  • Builds the machines your business needs on top of it
  • Keeps all of that work in a folder our updates never touch
  • Leaves a build guide, a stable toolkit and a checker, so your team keeps going

We bring the machine. You keep it.

What your company keeps

  • The machine, and every machine built on it
  • All of its data, exportable to CSV and JSON on any day
  • Its AI, on its own Claude or ChatGPT account
  • A copy it can move to its own cloud account
  • A system that keeps running, with or without a support plan

The four that take a good developer 50 hours on their own

Admin console 16 h

Personal sign-in, owner and member roles, invitations and settings in four plain groups, designed for a mobile device first.

Your own AI 12 h

Your company's Claude or ChatGPT plan, or an Anthropic API key. Checked before it is saved, metered on every request, under a hard monthly ceiling.

MCP server 14 h

A secure door for AI agents: standard OAuth or a key, two permission levels, every action recorded. No connected agent can send, publish or spend.

Mobile app 10 h

Installs from the browser on iPhone and Android, wearing your company's name and logo, with a printable install guide for staff.

And the other 150 hours

Security and ownership 28 h

  • Single-tenant: shares nothing with any other company
  • Automatic HTTPS, for approved addresses only
  • Signed releases, checked against a trust file on the box
  • Downgrades and unknown signers refused
  • Only a root key can change who may sign
  • Separate keys for the console, the job queue and updates
  • Cross-site protection on every change
  • Passwords hashed, sign-in attempts throttled
  • Credentials never shown, exported or logged
  • Our setup key deleted at first boot
  • Server access with your own SSH key
  • Every dependency pinned and verified
  • Background services locked down

Updates that can't break you 20 h

  • Signed updates checked twice a day
  • Spread out, never the whole fleet at once
  • Undone by itself if not healthy in two minutes
  • Database snapshot before every change
  • Never follows an unreviewed branch
  • Pauses if the box's own files were edited
  • One button saves those edits and restores the files
  • An Updates page: version and last check
  • Every update decision recorded on the box

Reliability 24 h

  • Watchdog every 30 minutes: AI, disk, web, worker
  • A job queue that never runs a job twice
  • Stuck work re-queued, never lost
  • Every job's outcome recorded
  • Nightly backup, seven days kept
  • Continuous off-site backup, ready to switch on
  • A restore drill and a self-check tool
  • Back by itself after a restart
  • A health check that names the exact version
  • A broken add-on never takes the box down
  • A signed six-hourly check-in: health, plan, head count, no customer data. Can be switched off

AI you control and can afford 16 h

  • One gateway for every AI request
  • Work that needs no AI never pays for it
  • Cost checked against the ceiling before each request
  • Every request logged against the job behind it
  • Reused context cached to cost less
  • A lighter model for simple tasks
  • A plan's usage limit pauses work, never fails it
  • Automatic retry when a provider is busy
  • A knowledge folder rides along on every request
  • Paid outside services held to their own caps

Your team 12 h

  • Invite, revoke and restore people on one page
  • Invitees set their own password
  • A revoked person is out on their next click
  • Members see only what they can use
  • One place for every setting, with who changed it
  • Light, dark or automatic, per person
  • A stop-everything switch for the owner
  • The system wears your company's name
  • Type and tap targets sized for a mobile device

The Morning Review 14 h

  • Built every 15 minutes, every day kept
  • A section for each machine; a quiet day stays quiet
  • Owner-only spend meters
  • By email, through your own Resend or SMTP account
  • Sent at most once a day, even if retried
  • By Slack when connected
  • Emails only your own people, never your customers
  • Your AI can read it over MCP

Built to grow 26 h

  • A folder of your own that updates never touch
  • Each new machine in one folder
  • A stable SDK, version 1, promised not to break
  • ownbox new writes a working starter machine
  • ownbox check flags anything unsafe, with the fix
  • A build guide for people and for AI coders
  • Machines add their own tools for your AI
  • A knowledge folder and settings file of your own
  • An update that stops a machine says which one, and whose fix it is
  • Export everything to CSV and JSON
  • Its own tests ship with it

Delivered running 10 h

  • Built automatically when ordered
  • Server, address and HTTPS set up
  • Running about five minutes after checkout
  • Handed to its owner with a one-time code
  • A set-up checklist that disappears when done

52 + 150 = about 200 hours of a good developer's time, before the first hour of your project. Conservative estimates, part by part.